Complaining: What makes people complain so much?

Complaining is behavior maintained by consequences. Understand.

In this text, we are going to analyze why the verbal behavior of complaining can be so frequent, even though it generally does not bring any change to what is being complained about.

Verbal behavior: command

In summary, the verbal operant defined by Skinner as mand consists of the type of verbal behavior that alters the environment with the intermediary of another person. Usually under a deprivation, the person talks to the other and is reinforced by that other person’s action.

For example, if I’m hungry, I can ask someone to bring me some fruit. The command is the command, but also the request, the request, as well as the demand, the demand. There are mands that are mands in disguise, almost like a suggestion: “hmm, lasagna would be good now” and our listener is capable of making this lasagna and does it.

As children, we say many mands because most of the time we are reinforced, that is, we receive what we ask for. Over time, and depending on each one’s history and environment, we may not get what we want or need anymore.

It turns out that verbal behavior has, shall we say, a low cost. After all, it’s easier to say over lasagna than to do lasagna. In addition to the reinforced behavior sometimes yes and sometimes not tends to be maintained for a long time.

A complaint, not infrequently, presents itself as a disguised command: “I have so many bills to pay” (saying to someone that he can lend or give money).

Verbal behavior: tact

Tact, in turn, is a verbal operant that is under the control of stimuli and reinforcement is usually approval: moving your head from top to bottom, smiling, saying ahem, yes, yes…

When a child sees a clock and says: “a clock”, he is “groping” the environment and “describing it”. If we hide the clock and ask what she saw and she says “it was a clock” she is also feeling her way, only the stimulus is no longer present.

A complaint can also be a tact. If someone describes to us a fight with the boss that happened in the morning, he is just describing something he saw, heard and felt like the child talking about the clock. And these behaviors are maintained by reinforcement not of changing a state of deprivation as in command, but by the approval of an audience.

It is curious how this behavior of complaining ends up being very strong. But if the person finds someone who does not reinforce them and says: “stop complaining” the effect of this punishment will not be the extinction of the behavior. He or she who complains will only find another audience, another person to complain about.

And, as a last resort, if he doesn’t find anyone, he will complain bringing verbal behavior to the covert level, that is, he will think instead of talking. Or else you will post on a social network where a friend will virtually like the complaint.

How to stop complaining?

If we don’t want to hear the other person’s complaint, we can politely not reinforce the behavior, leaving the room we are in, hanging up the call, or perhaps changing the subject. But we have to be aware that we are not likely to control the behavior of the other person, whose history of reinforcement may be very long and strong.

Now, if we want to change our complaining behavior, we have to realize what we get out of complaining. Does the complaint directly change the environment as a mand? (Like the mother who complains about the mess and the children then clean the house). Or is the complaint maintained because we have dear friends or family who are good listeners and who wholeheartedly accept everything we say?

Knowing the function of the act of complaining, we are better able to change. A very effective way is not to try to suppress the complaint, but to replace it with another behavior. I saw the report, these days, of a religious person who replaced the complaint with prayers.

But it doesn’t have to be a replacement for religious behavior. We can replace the complaint with a thank you for what we already have. Or maybe do something else, like go for a run or watch a good movie or read a good book.

Conclusion

Verbal behavior often appears to be magical. We don’t need to think about the extreme of someone who said he wanted the rain to stop and suddenly stopped (and got superstitious like the rain dance). Verbal behavior seems magical because we make some sounds and this can alter external events.

I write: “share this text with your friends” and you share. One sentence affects another person’s behavior.

In the case of complaining, with two verbal operants studied in Skinner’s behavioral psychology, we managed to explain what maintains – and what extinguishes – the behavior of complaining.

The mother who complains about the mess and is then reinforced by tidying up is likely to complain in the future, since complaining is a command.

The woman who complains about her husband’s behavior (to someone else) will not be reinforced by the change in her husband’s behavior, but she continues to complain because she has someone who approves or at least hears what happened and it is unpleasant.

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